Julian Assange unlikely to be charged in US

[n2doc]

The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting US news organisations and journalists, United States officials say.
The officials stressed that a formal decision has not been taken and a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks remains impanelled, but they said there is little possibility of bringing a case against the Australian, who has sought asylum in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing online top secret military and diplomatic documents.
The Obama administration has charged government employees and contractors who leak classified information - such as former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning - with violations of the Espionage Act.
But officials said that although Assange published classified documents, he did not leak them, something they said significantly affects their legal analysis.
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"The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists," former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/julian-assange-unlikely-to-be-charged-in-us-20131126-2y7uk.html

[hack89]

1. This is good

the fact that the decision is influenced by a concern over protecting the rights of journalists is encouraging.

[newfie11]

2. I wouldn't trust them

They can see to it he just disappears or his car hits a tree and blows up or his plane crashes or any number of fun fill treasures the CIA has!

[struggle4progress]

3. Nah. They might continue to feed his paranoia, though, like this:

Teenage WikiLeaks volunteer: Why I served as an FBI informant
Sigurdur Thordarson got $5,000 for handing over 1TB of WikiLeaks data.
by Cyrus Farivar - Jun 28, 2013 1:00 am UTC

... Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson .. then an 18-year-old ... had been involved with WikiLeaks during the previous 18 months, moving ever-closer to the inner circle of the group—Julian Assange eventually promoted him to running the group’s IRC channel, and he was put in charge of dealing with newcomers, media, and other volunteers. On Thursday, Wired revealed the Icelandic teenager that was part of WikiLeaks also served as a paid FBI informant, publishing months of e-mails from Thordarson to his FBI handlers .... Over the course of about a year, Thordarson, now 20, claims he was paid around $5,000 in cash .. in exchange for his cooperation with the investigation into WikiLeaks, which included being questioned and handing over around 1TB of data .. that included chat logs, videos, documents, pictures, and other .. data ...